


friday?

by shatteredhourglass



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Canon-Typical Violence, Established James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, M/M, Protective Clint Barton, Ronin Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24338791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: Bucky's making his way as Captain America. Alone. (Except not really.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 43
Kudos: 204





	friday?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trashkingtater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashkingtater/gifts).



> Tada! Some Buckycap/Ronin!Clint things. I did my best. I hope it's everything you dreamed of, Taters. 
> 
> I love the mask on the Freefall suit. Very hot.

Bucky’s been having a good run as Captain America lately, so it makes sense that something would go wrong.

“Captain _goddamn_ America,” the man in black says with a vicious grin. “You’re in a lot of trouble for coming h-”

Bucky shoots him in the knee.

“ _Fuck_ ,” the man spits at him, and Bucky kicks him onto the ground without even putting any effort in.

It’s not even satisfying. He hates going on these missions alone - hates doing anything alone, really. After shrugging off the Soldier he’d been practically smothered by Steve, and then he’d been dating Hawkeye, and then… well.

He’s used to people, is the point. Bucky _likes_ people.

That is, when they’re not running an underground (literally) drug operation. He’s standing on a catwalk above the main operation and from what he can tell, there’s only a few men standing guard. The people that make the drugs have been shipped out somewhere else, apparently. That’s not _great_ , but it means he doesn’t have to worry about hurting them while he clears the place out.

“It’s y- _gack_ ,” and Bucky thinks about what he’s going to have for dinner tonight as he steps over the next guy. Maybe noodles. Those are easy to make. Sometimes he’ll cook, but he usually ends up making too much (he’s used to cooking for two) and it goes to waste.

He’d order a pizza, but that feels _worse_ somehow.

Another black-clad idiot tries drop down on him from the roof. They’re not quiet about it in the slightest, however, and it’s easy to step back out of the way.

Before he can get his gun up and around he’s grabbed by the wings on his head, yanked down as their knee smacks into his face. The pain spikes sharp in his cheek and he drives his fist into their stomach and then yanks himself backwards hard enough to rip the fabric on his forehead, accidentally pulling out a few hairs too.

Still, it gives him enough space to shoot them through one boot and then the thigh. He takes their gun and throws it off the catwalk for good measure, rubbing at his sore face. Shit, that’s going to ache for a while.

Bucky tugs the cowl off his face completely and rubs at his hair, finally reaching that itch at the back of his skull. Ah, bliss. He hates that fucking thing, it squashes his head. It’s part of the costume though, so he puts up with it. (He can’t say he feels bad about it being ripped, though.)

The cowl is weird. The shield is weird. Being _alone_ is weird.

(He still keeps a boomerang arrow folded up in one of his pockets.)

The remaining guards are scattering as he strides towards them. One tries to dive at him but Bucky’s ready for it, cracks them over the head with the barrel of the gun. The rest of the fight turns into a blur of fists in throats, bullets in somewhat nonlethal places and pained grunts.

Bucky’s mostly thinking about how he’d like to go home and curl up in that oversized purple sweater he’s got folded neatly on his pillow. Alpine likes to curl on top of it as well, so he’ll probably have to lure her away with the overabundance of toys he keeps around. Hell, maybe he’ll just scoop Alpine up _with_ the sweater and hug both.

It’s one of those kinda days.

He’s so caught up thinking about things at home that he doesn’t notice what’s going on underneath him until there’s a shriek and a clash of metal-on-metal. The guy Bucky’s got by the throat grins at him and then a creature that’s more knives than flesh slams him into the wall.

It screams right in his face, discordant and ear-splitting. His gun is thrown aside and it pins him to the brickwork hard enough that he can feel the indents in his ass. One acidic green hand blinks at him and Bucky has _massively_ misjudged what’s going on in this place.

This is the closest he’s come to getting a kiss in months, he realizes faintly. It’s not quite as much fun as he’d imagined it being. Mostly because he’d been imagining blond hair and a roguish grin, and the monster has neither of those.

It throws him at the wall opposite like he weighs nothing at all, and Bucky shuts his eyes as tight as he can when the concrete rushes up way too fast.

For a second he thinks maybe something magical will happen. It’s feasible. He’s seen weirder before; with the world they live in it’s totally plausible that some otherworldly force will stop him from colliding with the wall. Maybe he’ll be caught by a man in (purple) shining armour.

Instead he crashes headfirst into unyielding stone, hard enough that his teeth rattle in his skull.

As if that’s not enough, as the blinding pain turns his vision white he bounces off the wall and crashes to the ground underneath. Bucky barely hears the monster shriek at him again but it sounds off - might just be his brain sloshing around in his skull, though. He pushes up from the ground slowly, tastes blood in his mouth as he somehow manages a sitting position with his back propped up against the wall.

This isn’t right. He’s got- he’s got things to _do_ , before he dies.

He’s got people he needs to be honest with - _one_ person, really, although he could probably stand to admit to Sam that he enjoys hanging out more often than not.

His vision clears enough for him to see the monster turn around to face him, eye swelling larger as its jaws open to reveal rows and rows of slightly blurry teeth.

There’s a flicker of black and gold from the corner of his eye, and the creature rears back with a katana embedded in that disgusting eye.

Bucky’s not lucid enough to keep track of everything but he does see the shadowy figure land on top of the monster, driving the sword in deeper and pulling another ear-splitting scream from it. It falls to its knees - well, _knees_ are an overestimation - swatting uselessly at the person on its head and the remaining men scatter from where they were watching it kick Bucky’s ass.

The scream cuts off to silence and the dark figure jumps off its corpse, lands neatly on the railing with the sword in one fist.

“Shit, it’s Ronin,” one of the guys says. “We gotta get out of here!”

That’s a load of bullshit, Bucky thinks to himself hazily. He’s got _guns_. A whole bunch of guns too, and three different knives tucked away in his suit. He’s goddamn Captain America! Why don’t they react like that when _he_ shows up to beat their asses to hell?

Ronin jumps down to the ground floor, swings the sword into a man’s throat and then uses him as a shield.

It's the deadly kind of graceful (hot too) and Bucky turns his head to the side to breathe through the urge to throw up. It’s not because of the violence - god knows he’s seen more than his fair share, and that’s not what makes his throat burn. Nope, that’d be the blow to the head he just took. _Shit_. Can brains get bruised? His brain feels pretty damn beaten right now.

A hand fists in the front of his suit and Bucky turns his face back around to see one of the thugs.

They've got Bucky’s gun in his hand. What the hell? That’s not _allowed_ , that belongs to him. Don’t these people have any manners?

“May as well finish the job,” the thug mutters, more to themself than to Bucky, and then the gun’s being pressed against his forehead. It’s blessedly cold, at least, and Bucky’s too dizzy to have any thoughts beyond that until they let out a pained grunt.

Bucky... has not been shot. Huh.

The grunt makes sense when a shining silver blade appears through their chest and they look down at the bloodstained steel with shock, like they're completely unable to figure out how it got there.

Bucky blinks at it for a few seconds too as it blurs slightly. The blade hasn't touched him.

“ _You don’t touch him_ ,” Clint snarls, yanking the sword out with a sickening squelch.

The black-clad person falls to the ground with a muffled thump but Bucky’s eyes are fixed on Clint’s face, the slightly crooked line of his nose and the scar on his lip. His mask’s fallen off somewhere during the fighting and even in the shadows Bucky can see the cold, terrifying rage on his face.

Yeah, okay. He can see why the bad guys are scared.

Bucky blinks again and then Clint’s crouching in front of him, his knees brushing Bucky’s thighs. There's more blood than there'd been when Bucky closed his eyes, and the space is silent. Did he kill them all? How long was Bucky out for? His eyes are just as blue as Bucky remembers - _bluer_ , even, although that might be because his vision’s a little shoddy right now.

_Clint_. He likes Clint.

“Buck? Bucky, talk to me. You okay?”

“Fine,” Bucky answers vaguely as Clint’s gloved hands touch his face, gently tilts his chin to the side to check. He’d grouch that Clint doesn’t trust him but he likes the warm leather against his skin - he likes that Clint fusses over him too, but that one he can’t admit out loud. “You came to rescue me.”

“Just can’t stay away from a pretty face like this,” Clint answers, hands briefly ruffling through Bucky’s hair once he’s satisfied there’s no mortal wounds. It’s nice. It’s even nicer when Clint leans in to kiss his forehead, letting out a huff of amusement at the messy brown strands getting in the way. “Getting a little scruffy here, Barnes.”

“Yeah. You’ve got a little… something, on your face,” Bucky says.

“’s not my blood, don’t worry about it. Did you hit your head?”

“Might’ve,” he replies. He doesn’t really remember.

“Alright,” Clint says, gets an arm around him. “Time to get you to a medical professional before your brain falls out of your skull and you only have your good looks left. Upsy-daisy.”

Bucky’s got no clue how he manages to keep them both upright. The stairs to the surface are certainly a challenge. Clint does a pretty good job of getting them up them anyway, and Bucky spends most of his time thinking about what scent Clint’s shampoo is. Hell, maybe he _did_ hit his head.

They end up standing in a grassy clearing. Half the grass is burned though, and Bucky has no doubt who the person behind that was. How did Clint ever make it as a spy when he completely misses the concept of _subtle_?

Although to be fair, he’s normally much more chill than this. Apparently he’s got an overprotective streak when it comes to Bucky getting hurt.

Clint braces Bucky against a tree and then starts fiddling with his phone.

Bucky just looks at him. Because, _wow_. Time

“You are _unbelievably_ pretty,” he says.

Clint glances up at him, lips twitching up into a brief smile. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere when you’re concussed, Buck. Nice try, though.”

A second later there’s a whoosh and Sam lands next to them in a blur of black and red, pushing his goggles up onto his face. He looks at Bucky and Bucky grimaces at him, feels his knees start to give out. He wants Clint to catch him again but it’s Sam that props him up again - it’s nice that he’s helping, but Bucky’s disoriented and he _misses_ Clint despite the man being approximately four feet away.

“Think this belongs to you,” Clint says.

“Nah, he's all yours and you know it,” Sam replies even as he gets Bucky under the arms, wings fanning out behind him. “SHIELD will be here soon. You’d better scram, Barton.”

“Take care of him for me,” Clint replies.

“That sounds like a lot of effort,” Sam says dryly, like he _isn’t_ planning on carrying Bucky all the way to the medical ward. 

Bucky twists himself around awkwardly, catches Clint’s eye just before the mask gets put back on. He’s still got that smear of blood on his jaw. Part of Bucky - the possibly concussed part - is tempted to immediately throw himself at another bad guy so he gets to watch Clint in action all over again, doesn’t want to closely examine why he finds it so attractive.

“Come see me on Friday,” he says. “We’ll go out."

“An audience with Captain America. Lucky me,” Clint answers, but there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. It’s not a _no_ , and Bucky’s old enough that he can let himself be optimistic about that. Maybe they can get a couple of beers, go up on a rooftop and look at the stars. That’d be pretty nice. 

Bucky's not sure what expression he's making, but whatever it is makes Clint pause as he's walking away. He's fast now - too fast for Bucky's aching skull, and it takes a few seconds for him to realize that Clint's kissing him, surprisingly gentle. It's kind of weird, isn't it? That Clint still touches him like he's something precious. Ronin only just massacred a bunch of people.

(Then again, he'd done it because Bucky was hurt, and isn't that something?)

Clint lets him go after a few more seconds, gently pats the star on his chest with more reverence than it probably warrants.

"Friday," Bucky says. 

"Friday," Clint repeats, stepping back.

Then his smile's replaced with sharp gold lines and Bucky's gotta watch him leave in that damned Ronin suit again.

This time he's pretty sure Clint's coming back, so it's okay.


End file.
